What are the Brood and how are they connected to Wolverine in X-Men '97?

Here’s what you need to know about the Brood

Episode 4 of X-Men ‘97 ended with Captain America and Black Widow giving Wolverine a file on Weapon X. Episode 5, “Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs” focuses on the mission Wolverine leads to a Weapon X facility to kill Doctor Cornelius, the scientist who gave the mutant his adamantium skeleton. But Wolverine’s team of vengeful Weapon X test subjects (and Morph) find something even worse waiting for them.

[Ed. note: This article contains spoilers for X-Men ‘97 season 2, episode 5]

Disappointed with the limitations of his mind-wiping technology, Cornelius has been experimenting with controlling the Brood, an alien hive mind. Predictably, that work got out of control and the Brood infected Cornelius, the other workers at the lab, and the wildlife around the facility. If you’re wondering where the Brood came from and what makes them so dangerous, here’s everything you need to know.

The Brood’s origin in Marvel Comics

The Brood were created by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum in 1982 for The Uncanny X-Men #155, where they served as minions of banished Shi’ar noble Deathbird. Ridley Scott’s Alien was released in 1979, and the Brood share many traits with the film’s xenomorphs. They reproduce by infecting sentient organisms with their eggs, which mutate the host and take over their minds. While the X-Men were able to defeat Deathbird, many were infected by the Brood. That’s a big problem, given that the Brood inherit their host’s mutant abilities.

This episode of X-Men ‘97 is specifically paying tribute to James Cameron’s Aliens, at one point directly quoting the 1986 film. It also references a 1988 issue of The Uncanny X-Men where the Brood try to take over Earth using infected mutants. Even Wolverine was infected, and briefly transformed before his healing factor killed off the parasite and allowed him to recover.

How does X-Men ‘97 change the Brood?

X-Men ‘97 is combining two big plotlines by also using “Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs” to restore Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton, which Magneto ripped out during the season 1 finale. In the comics, Wolverine spent six years without adamantium before he got his metal claws back from Apocalypse, who made Wolverine his Horseman Death.

Wolverine reveals he gathered his squad under false pretenses. He doesn’t really care about Cornelius, he just needs a place where he can get his adamantium back. Conveniently, Cornelius’ experiments on the Brood showed the aliens couldn’t survive adamantium implantation. When Wolverine is transformed into a Brood in “Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs,” Morph lures him into an adamantium chamber and Wolverine comes out fully restored.

Because the Brood are a hive mind and their leader had infested Wolverine, cleansing Wolverine stopped the Brood threat. The Brood have been a recurring problem for the X-Men, Captain Marvel, and the Hulk in Marvel comics, but we’ve probably seen the last of them on X-Men ‘97 — at least for this season.

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X-Men '97 is streaming on Disney Plus